Letters: Nobody here
Might your error (Feedback, 16 January) represent the first known misquote
of a computer generated voice message? The quote ‘. . . there is no one
else here just now. There’s nobody here but computers’ is incorrect. The
computer actually says ‘. . . there is no one here just now. There’s nobody
here . . .’ Your inclusion of the word ‘else’ conveys an incorrect impression.
As responsible technologists, we know the place for computers.
Seriously, in addition to being an answering machine, the system is
part of our research in conversational computing and gives us a wealth of
data on callers’ reactions and attitude in speaking to computers. New 杏吧原创
readers can try the system on 031-650 2785.
Mervyn Jack The Centre for Speech Technology Research University of
Edinburgh
Letters: Morphic limerick
I have admired John Gribbin’s work for a long time; I even wrote the
entry on him in the latest edition of Twentieth-Century Science Fiction
Writers (Chicago, 1991). But I had never realised (until Feedback, 9 January)
that he had written the limerick about the fencer called Fisk. James Coleman,
in Relativity for the Layman (which I bought in 1959; first edition 1954),
calls it a ‘now-famous limerick’, which implies that it was written several
years before 1954. Since Gribbin was born in 1946, it is hardly likely that
he was much older than 3 or 4 when he wrote it. My admiration for this prodigiously
prolific man grows daily.
Edward James University of York
Letters: Morphic limerick
David Jones University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Letters: Macaque mafiosi
I was interested to read that macaque monkeys, if defeated, will take
revenge on a relative of their enemies (New 杏吧原创, Science, 16 January),
but I noted that the study was done on a group of macaques in Rome Zoo.
The mafioso, vendetta-style revenge on the families is intriguing –
I postulate that had a similar study been conducted at London Zoo, the defeated
macaques would have turned away with a quizzical look as though to ‘partake
was enough’.
Torix Bennett Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire
Letters: Domino dilemma
I regularly improve the financial standing of the old age pensioners
in our local public house by playing dominoes against them. The game they
prefer is the simple one-man-a-side version where each player draws seven
dominoes. I can see no way of recouping the year’s losses unless by chicanery.
Can any of your readers tell me whether the chances of winning with eight
dominoes again seven are greater or less than with seven against seven?
Jame O’Hagan Livingston, West Lothian
Letters: Polluter parking
and environmental bad news – so why not make these wasters pay? Now
is the time to raise the price of all city centre car parking for cars carrying
just the driver – but charge the current price for cars carrying two or
more people. This would penalise the biggest abuser of cars and the environment,
the lone driver, by applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle. It would encourage
more efficient use of cars, car parks and fuel.
Unlike more expensive forms of differential traffic pricing, such as
sensors embedded under the road, differential city centre car park pricing
would be a simple, low-technology, low-cost solution. It could be implemented
immediately.
Barry Johnston Chester
Letters: Coppice cycles
Ian Fells fulminates against the cutting of trees to fuel wood-burning
stoves (Forum, 16 January). He speaks of a farmer about to ‘attack a wood’
which ‘will certainly not be replanted with oak trees, but more likely sunflowers
. . .’
While this may be true of that part of the Garonne, it’s not true here.
Even with a subsidy on cash crops, the cost of winning farmland from woodland
is prohibitive. Take out a wood for a motorway or for housing – we see that
daily. But to grub out every tree root and plant up with sunflowers – no,
I don’t see it.
As long ago as Neolithic times it was recognised that if you cut down
trees in temperate (broadleaved) forests they tend to grow up again. Not
in the same form: instead of one trunk they regrow with many. It’s called
coppicing.
Given light, the cut stump throws out a mass of shoots which grow on
annually. Traditionally they might be harvested thumb-thick for withies,
pole-size for wattle, larger for firewood or charcoal. The beauty of it
is that after the wood has been harvested it grows again, so the cycle can
be repeated again and again.
Not only does it provide a sustainable source of fuelwood, but the carbon
released as CO2 is part of the current carbon cycle rather than,
as with fossil fuels, carbon laid down millennia ago.
Of course, I agree that we don’t want to see ancient oak woodlands chopped
down for short-term gain. But for energy conversion, sun to biomass to woodburner
may not be as inimical as Ian Fells suggests.
Jeremy Hywel-Davies Beaminster, Dorset
Letters: Testing tests
I read with interest Neil Harris’s article ‘In search of the right stuff’
(Careers, 2 January).
In 1986 I found myself out of work due to a downturn in the oil industry,
and tried my hand as a sales representative. In my search for work I was
invited to interviews by two companies. At my first interview I was asked
to sit an aptitude test and psychometric questionnaire and was told that
I wouldn’t have enough time to finish the aptitude test but to do as much
as possible. I managed to do reasonably well on the test but did not finish
it.
Two days later I went for my interview with the second company and was
again asked to sit a test. Yes, you guessed it – exactly the same one. Once
again, I was told not to expect to finish it, but I did with five minutes
to spare. The interviewer was amazed. Did I let on? Like hell I did.
For the record, I didn’t get the first job, but the second company practically
begged me to work for them.
Russell Foden Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire
Letters: Cable capacity
Elisabeth Geake (Forum, 16 January) is unduly pessimistic about what
cable TV companies are doing: most of the advanced systems being installed
in Britain today have optical fibre in their trunk networks, leading from
their headquarters (the head-end, in the industry’s jargon) to the local
hub from which individual subscribers are connected.
It is true that the last stretch of cable from the hub on the street
corner to the home – 100 metres or so – is coaxial cable, but do not sneer.
‘Coax’ is still cheaper than fibre and is more easily terminated – all you
need is a wire stripper and a screwdriver.
And it is not that limited: it can carry hundreds of megahertz of TV,
phone calls and data. Can anyone think of any application which would require
homes to have connections with capacity measured in gigahertz?
Anyway, bandwidth is not all. Digital compression is nearly here, allowing
a dozen, perhaps 20 video channels to be squeezed into one of today’s TV
channels. The technology will be in use in the US this year from TV studio
to cable head-end; in a couple of years it will begin to reach the street
hub or even cable subscribers’ homes. The hub on the street corner may then
have 1000 or more channels available, including dial-up video phone calls,
digital audio and individually rented movies as well as conventional TV.
The coaxial cable leading into the home will still have enough capacity
to satisfy the average family.
Alan Burkitt-Gray Cable & Satellite Communications International
London
Letters: Locks on wheels
Andy Coghlan’s article on Amsterdam’s locks (Technology, 2 January)
contains inaccuracies when claiming ‘the Oranje locks will be the first
major civil structure in the world to be fitted with ‘hydrostatic bearings’.
Contrary to what is stated, four caissons have operated for a number of
years in Liverpool on hydrostatic bearings without wheels. The first one
to be converted in 1968 is about to undergo its first overhaul.
Henry Lyth Liverpool
Letters: Boozy cars
Congratulations on your interesting article on the Brazilian Pro alcohol
programme (‘Will Brazil’s cars go on the wagon?’, 9 January).
As one of the government officials involved in the programme in the
past, I would like to add a few points.
Ethanol from sugar cane in Brazil today provides the equivalent of 250
000 barrels per day of gasoline. Since it is a renewable fuel, it reduces
appreciably the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere.
In addition, it reduces oil imports.
It is true that the cost of ethanol (21 cents per litre) is higher than
gasoline (18 cents per litre), but the alcohol programme has had a wide
impact on the Brazilian economy. It has created 700 000 jobs. In addition,
cogeneration using bagasse is becoming a big business in Sao Paulo and
will lower the price of ethanol.
As things stand now, Brazil is in effect paying more for a fuel that
does not contribute to the greenhouse effect and other types of atmospheric
pollution. This is what all other countries should be doing with coal and
oil. They should impose a carbon tax on such fuels.
Incidentally, Osmar Ivoer, director of the national fuel department
(DNCC), was recently relieved from his job.
Jose Goldemberg University of Sao Paulo Brazil
Letters: Let them copy
Martyn Kelly’s lament for his rejected but relevant paper (Forum, 2
January) echoes the experience of so many professional scientists working
abroad.
Sadly, the lack of local academic finance and equipment in many developing
countries makes hard field data a product of enormous value. Visiting and
local consultants recycle almost any data at enormous rates, often regardless
of their quality. At a couple of conferences in Asia last year, casual distribution
of even basic field-gathered water quality data resulted in my being instantly
mobbed by research students and (especially) their professors (and stern
rebukes from the conference organisers about releasing such material before
publication, because it would immediately be published under the names
of new authors in local journals).
As a consultant ecologist, in the past three years I have ‘published’
nine reviews, analyses and databases. Most of these would have earned local
ecologists good master’s degrees, but not a single one was in a ‘respectable’
international journal – with no budget for such luxuries, the people who
urgently need access to such data would never see them.
Publishing in local journals allows information-starved local workers
to develop their own capabilities, and to build on this work when the foreign
consultants have all gone home. Putting data into consultant’s reports is
a wonderful way of ensuring that they will get plenty of circulation in
the country itself; any data with any value at all will be extensively recycled,
and quoted far more widely than any rigorously scrutinised paper in a ‘respectable’
international learned journal. So Martyn Kelly’s decision to publish his
paper in a local journal, and let his CV look after itself, is entirely
the right one. It is totally unimportant if someone else plagiarises our
work – the developing countries need reliable data far more than we need
respectable CVs.
Douglas Cross Honiton, Devon
Letters: Bio-hype
One gets very tired of unfulfilled biotechnological hype and no readers
are more tired than plant breeders of being told that their peasant-like
activities are about to be transformed by Modern Science. Andy Coghlan’s
readable article, ‘China’s new Cultural Revolution’ (This Week, 2 January)
may have something to say about the politics of bio-hype but has little
evident bearing on plant breeding.
If you want tobacco mosaic virus resistance in tobacco, it’s been around
for 50 years (see the beautiful work of Dan Gerstel on Nicotiana glutinosa
to tabacum transfer in Journal of Heredity, 36, 197-206, 1945). If you want
X and Y resistances in potatoes, they have been around and successfully
used as long or even longer (see the excellent genetic summary by George
Cockerham in Heredity, 25, 309-348, 1970, and scores of other papers before
and since). If you want cucumber mosaic virus resistance in tomatoes, it
has been known in a couple of wild relatives for more than a decade but,
so far as I know, without practical breeding outcome (Jacquemond and Laterrot,
Proceedings of Eucarpia, May 1981, 251-256); the Chinese biotech people
may really have something here but, if so, Coghlan doesn’t tell us what
it is.
Please, why can’t we have a moratorium on bio-hype, from biotechnologists
and journalists alike? Decent genetics (now in some danger, of course) is
a perfectly effective basis for plant breeding, so it would be better if
the biotech people and their attendant journalists kept quiet until biotechnology
can genuinely breed something that practical genetics can’t produce more
quickly and more cheaply. It might even happen someday. Meanwhile, it would
help if both parties were at least more careful to read the literature
on matters which have been current for decades.
Norman Simmonds Edinburgh